Monaco - Around 100 environment ministers are expected in Monaco on Wednesday for a special session of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - billed as the biggest green meeting since the Bali summit in December.
On the agenda is global warming but also "global dimming", whereby soot in the atmosphere accelerates some impacts of climate change, such as the melting of the ice sheets, reduced crop yields and more unpredictable monsoons.
The session will open with the publication of the UNEP's annual report which is expected to highlight growing fears over climate change, notably "how the increase in CO² emissions is leading to the increased acidification of the seas and oceans," according to a news release.
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The gathering in Monaco, which ends on Friday, is billed by the organisers as an intermediate step between the UN conference on climate change in Bali and the next meeting in Copenhagen in 2009.
"The last climate convention meeting delivered the Bali Road Map. This is the path along which over 190 countries are travelling in order to deliver a new and decisive climate deal by Copenhagen in 2009," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said.
Among the speakers will be Indian Professor Veerabhadran Ramanathan, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, an expert on global dimming.
The meeting will publish a report on the effect of climate change on the fishing industry, and look at other environmental issues such as the global trade in hazardous waste.
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